Flt Sgt Copping's P-40 From The Egyptian Desert

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Member for

19 years 10 months

Posts: 917

Jerry,

Assuming real to start with, going on the last two photos.

I am assuming it is a P40E either US serial or UK code.

I rang someone at AHB and they know nothing about it!?

So if the code is known, will be easy to find out if missing. (If any of us stumbled across this would take quite a few photos and anything to ID the airframe).

Trouble is that is looking at it not from a layperson point of view!?

Need to try and contact with 'AWOL' - seems no previous links to site or registration?

regards

Mark

Hi
user name is actually AWOT, I tried googling it and got ...

AWOT = A Waste Of Time

cheers
Jerry

Member for

18 years 6 months

Posts: 554

Another unusual aspect is that modellers usually show bullet entry holes, these are exit holes for bullet or shrapnel just aft of the oil tank. Could be the oil tank was hit causing loss of oil and engine to sieze. Notice also above the roundel where shrapnel has hit on the inside but not pierced the skin, just left of the small panel.

Also note where hatch has been forced open by distortion of the fuselage the security dzus fastener has torn through the hatch skin flap below the hand opener.

Have you also noticed discolouration of side perspex? Is that what would happen in that environment?

There is just to much detail in the hatch shot to dismiss the photo out of hand. If it is from photo shop or manipulated in some way it is the work of a genius who really does know this aircraft.

Member for

14 years 4 months

Posts: 1,665

Its got to be real. Even on some of the big scale models you don't see people putting the cross heads on screws, rivets pulled where something has twisted, or holes in plastic that represent metal that thin.

Thats before you take into account the last shot is taken with the canopy still shut.

If it was a diorama, to get that level of detail it would be huge.

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19 years 9 months

Posts: 1,777

It could be the RAF is the RAFM, and they are not talking because they are trying to recover it?

Member for

16 years 1 month

Posts: 93

Engine

The way the prop and front of the engine has come away seems a bit strange like it has a collector ring behind the prop, or possibly a cowl of some sort but doesnt look right for an inline engine to me unless it is just the front cowl and the reduction gear ,suprised the front of the engine departing doesnt seem to have caused any damage to the wing on its way.

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14 years

Posts: 4,996

It would be nice to have a translation of the comments on that website.

Member for

19 years 4 months

Posts: 1,493

I would have thought the engine cowlings would be more damaged if the prop had suffered that much damage.

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14 years

Posts: 4,996

Error

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,598

20 spitfires and RAF P-40 in the same month? Seems like it's going to be a good year!

And a proposed Do-24 recovery (war grave) in Poland....

Do24T 1151 of Seenotrettungsstaffel 81 lost March 5,1945 in Lake Resko

Member for

14 years 4 months

Posts: 1,665

The last shot is taken with a closed canopy.... which would be hard to do with a model. Play with the contrast and brightness,and you can see out the windscreens way into the distance. Doing the same with some of the other shots, and you can see a hell of a lot of engine.

I'm convinced.

Member for

18 years 6 months

Posts: 554

I would have thought the engine cowlings would be more damaged if the prop had suffered that much damage.

The long nose Allison is very fragile at the front.

Member for

13 years

Posts: 255

I'll accept this is real. The cockpit shots are what convince me, not the instruments but the deeper detail, rivets, structure etc which a modeller would struggle to reproduce. With my, albeit limited, experience of working on aircraft this feels right and genuine. Unless of course it's a 1:1 scale model :D

Member for

13 years 2 months

Posts: 251

It would be nice to have a translation of the comments on that website.

Post #21

Member for

16 years 7 months

Posts: 10,647

The last shot is taken with a closed canopy.... which would be hard to do with a model. Play with the contrast and brightness,and you can see out the windscreens way into the distance. Doing the same with some of the other shots, and you can see a hell of a lot of engine.

This is just my take Rich, but I reckon the first three shots are a combination of real photo of real scenery, a model, and CGI.
The last two shots are possibly of a different real aricraft, but then photoshopped/CGI'd to look like our desert 'find' in situ. The first few shots reel you in, the last couple are the 'clincher'.

Something just doesn't feel real about the pictures, or indeed the lack of them, or any concrete news.
Hopefully I'm wrong though!

Member for

13 years 2 months

Posts: 865

its all fishy to me. was the photograther on his/her own?. normaly with discoveries like this there is always one or two people mooching around in the photo`s.

total lack of sqn code and no photo of the tail serial seems realy odd. any ref number or detail you would try to record. does not matter if it was an old lorry or a sunken ship.

found this in my pond

Member for

12 years 1 month

Posts: 442

Hi
user name is actually AWOT, I tried googling it and got ...

AWOT = A Waste Of Time

cheers
Jerry

Maybe that's the clue, he's wasting our time with an elaborate hoax? I can believe that more than I can believe the authenticity of the photos.

Is there oil and gas in the Sahara? And what the hell does 'awot awot' mean!?

Member for

20 years 1 month

Posts: 401

My thought on opening the page was "what a fantastic diorama". However, the clouds seem to be correctly positioned in the two shots in which they are shown. The close-up of the opened hatch looks far too detailed to be a model and nothing looks out of scale (thickness of the panel, for example). My concern is the terrain. It looks pretty rocky, yet apart from the loss of the prop and reduction gear there is very little airframe damage - the leading edge of the stbd wing is undamaged. I can understand that sands shift and this may in 194x have been sandy, but would the shifting sands deposit the aircraft neatly on the rocks? It would be superb to think this were real, but "awot" rings alarm bells. Fingers crossed.......

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 18,353

If it's a fake, then the person has gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to convince us otherwise!

Someone mentioned a lack of unit markings - it's possible that it was a fresh delivery, and there wasn't enough time to paint any codes on, surely? I can think of at least one Spitfire where that happened (and it didn't last all that long in combat, either!)

Although the lack of serial is a bit of a puzzler. The fuselage looks like it still has paint on it, but the upper surfaces of the wings look stripped - probably by the movement of the sand. So that theory (the sand stripped the serial off) is probably out....

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 10,029

This is just my take Rich, but I reckon the first three shots are a combination of real photo of real scenery, a model, and CGI.
The last two shots are possibly of a different real aricraft, but then photoshopped/CGI'd to look like our desert 'find' in situ. The first few shots reel you in, the last couple are the 'clincher'.

Something just doesn't feel real about the pictures, or indeed the lack of them, or any concrete news.
Hopefully I'm wrong though!

"In stereo"

Mark

Member for

12 years 1 month

Posts: 442

How about this theory:

The first 3 photos are a model, perhaps 1:48 or 1:32. The close up is just that, a much larger scale piece of the fuselage. The cockpit interior is baffling, it looks too realistic. Maybe it's from another, genuine P-40?